


patron saint of the heart

by ivermectin



Category: Osmosis (TV 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, POV Lucas Apert, Past Abuse (implied/mentioned), and Antoine is very caring (as he is), episode 7: redemption, lucas is very sad, past Lucas/Léopold, very small mention of canon infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28387116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: Antoine is a grounding force, fixed in his certainty, ready to handle Lucas being a mess, as always.
Relationships: Lucas Apert/Antoine Fouché





	patron saint of the heart

**Author's Note:**

> Lucas being a fictional character broke my heart, because I really wanted to _hug_ him.
> 
> I tried to find French transcripts to get a better sense of what they were saying, but unfortunately [only these English ones](https://subslikescript.com/series/Osmosis-7043380/season-1/episode-7) were available, which I think match up to the subtitles as well.

“Look at me.”

Antoine is a grounding force, fixed in his certainty, ready to handle Lucas being a mess, as always.

“You didn't kill him,” Antoine says, quiet and calm.

Noticing that Lucas is still busy, remembering, god, he’d been out of his mind, the smell of chlorine and a little boy watching the water, fuck, he hates swimming pools, and he was drunk and he didn’t want to be there and he was scared, too, calling and calling and nobody was picking up, and he’d been scattered like a deck of cards, falling from where a solitary hand misbalanced and crumbled the whole thing -

Antoine, again. “You didn't do anything.”

Firm belief. The kind of belief that Lucas has never been able to have in himself.

“You didn't kill him, okay?”

Antoine has the biggest heart out of everyone Lucas has ever met. Of course, this terrifies Lucas. How could it not.

Still, it works. The look in Antoine’s eyes is gentle, loving, intense. Lucas doesn’t understand it, how Antoine can look at him and see a whole man, someone worth loving, but Antoine does. He’s full of miracles.

Patron saint of the heart.

“I went to Osmosis,” Antoine says, in the same tone, like everything he’s saying is of utmost importance. “It turns out, Léopold might not actually be your soulmate.”

“I knew it,” Lucas says.

He isn’t surprised – after all, weren’t soulmates meant to make you feel safe, content, happy and loved? Léopold made him feel wary and uncertain, like his skin doesn’t fit right, like there’s something about him that’s fundamentally wrong, but it hadn’t always been like that.

That was the crux of it; everything could go sour. There was no guarantee that the honeymoon phase would last. One day the glow could fade from Antoine’s eyes too; one day Antoine could break Lucas’s heart, treat him like garbage, hurt him and smash him under his foot like a doll made of glass.

“So, what was the point of all this, then?”

Antoine doesn’t get it, because Antoine isn’t afraid or unsure. He’s always been confident, always known his own worth. He’s never had to wonder at the authenticity of love.

Antoine isn’t like Lucas, who is a certified mess. An absolute train wreck, but oh, they knew that already.

“I freaked out,” he says. Sighs, a vulnerable tone to his voice, all exhalations. “I freaked out because you were becoming everything, for me.”

It sounds like a shitty excuse, but it’s not an excuse as much as it is a reason. Antoine understands – after Léopold had broken Lucas’s heart, it was Antoine who’d picked up the pieces. Stuck him back together. Cherished him. Never seen him as anything less than whole even as he saw the worst parts of Lucas.

“You were perfect,” Lucas says.

Antoine swallows, his gaze focused on Lucas with a solemn intensity, his expression open in the way that comes so easily to him.

“But I'd experienced something incredible with Léopold, too, _”_ Lucas goes on. “I really freaked out, I was scared that someday I'd wake up next to someone thinking, ‘Shit, he's not the one.’”

 _I wanted to know for sure,_ Lucas wants to say. _That it was meant to be me and you. Because if you ended up becoming like him, it would destroy me._

The look on Antoine’s face is understanding, and a little heartbroken. Lucas isn’t sure on whose behalf the heartbreak is, but he goes on with his confession.

 _“_ And I preferred to believe that Osmosis knew better than me – ” _and what a mistake that’d been_ – “And even when this fucking implant bugged, you see _– ” the swimming pool, the tiles, the girl with the floats attached to her arms, the screaming, the woman screaming –_ “when this fucking implant bugged, I kept on thinking it would know better than me _.”_

Antoine has never seen Lucas as damaged, even when Lucas breaks down like this, even when Lucas shows him every single piece of him that’s shattered and fucked up and ruined, and that’s something about Antoine that Lucas will never understand. Antoine really is perfect.

Right now, he’s looking at Lucas with a sort of ache that looks like he understands, that he’s sorry. He’s looking at Lucas like Lucas matters to him, like it hurts him that Lucas is in pain, like he loves him. Lucas doesn’t understand why Antoine loves him, but that’s Lucas’s problem. Lucas not having faith in the force of Antoine’s love – that’s the problem that affected them both. The problem that got them here, even.

“I'm sorry,” Lucas says. He means all of it – sorry for not talking to you about this, sorry for making you feel like I doubted you, sorry for cheating on you, sorry for not being honest with you, sorry for not letting myself believe in your love, sorry for believing you would hurt me, sorry for being such a failure of a human being.

But Antoine’s expression is gentle, maybe even forgiving. Like if he could hear Lucas’s thoughts, he’d refute them. He’d say that Lucas may have done bad things, but he’s not a bad person. Antoine’s belief in him, his knowledge that Lucas wasn’t a murderer even when Lucas himself couldn’t believe it – that’s solid, and that’s done something for the two of them.

 _Maybe they have a chance_ , Lucas thinks. And then Antoine kisses his cheek, and asks him if he wants coffee. And Lucas isn’t sure what he wants other than to be with Antoine, to exist in the moment, to feel the way he feels right now, vulnerable and splayed open, but at the same time, completely unburdened. So he shrugs and says, “Why not,” and basks in the small smile Antoine gives him, a quiet and lovely little thing.

**Author's Note:**

> where are the tumblr gifsets of the lucatoine forehead kiss, antoine's soft smile @ lucas, etc etc?? if you read this & enjoyed it and can gif and are so obliged.... please i'm beggin' ya... do your boy a favour.....  
>  no pressure obviously, i'm just. they were so good, i am so confused by how there is No fandom?


End file.
